Kate Graham’s podcast, No Second Chances, looks at the 12 women who have, so far, served as premiers or prime minister in Canada; it is so named because none of these women were re-elected.

Still, the Ontario Liberal Party leadership candidate hopes one day to follow in these women’s footsteps, with better results.

“Politics only change when we see different kinds of people lead,” Graham said during a stop at Brockville’s Richard’s Coffeehouse on Friday morning.

Graham is one of six people vying to take over the Liberal Party, which was reduced to a rump and lost official party status in the 2018 election. She is taking on former cabinet ministers Steven Del Duca, Michael Coteau, and Mitzie Hunter, as well as fellow newcomers Alvin Tedjo and Brenda Hollingsworth, who was still being vetted by the party to run for leader.

The Liberals hold their leadership convention on March 7.

Graham, a former municipal official in London, Ont., ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals there in 2018. A PhD in political science, she teaches at Western University, King’s University College, and Huron University College.

Brockville Coun. Leigh Bursey, a friend of Graham’s husband, London Coun. and Deputy Mayor Jesse Helmer, said the latter suggested he host Graham in Brockville for one of his affordable housing roundtables.

The roundtable at the downtown coffee shop drew a small crowd, which discussed Graham’s 12-point affordable housing and homelessness plan. Its many proposals include increasing the speculation tax on non-resident home buyers, allowing municipalities to decide where to apply inclusionary zoning (requirements for a share of affordable housing within developments), and reintroducing rent controls scrapped by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government.

Bursey, long an advocate of affordable housing and other efforts to combat homelessness, said Graham’s plan impresses him as it reflects a candidate who is outside the “Toronto bubble.”

“There is not one damn acronym in here,” he told the gathering.

Another of the participants was Robin Reil, the local area’s Catholic school board trustee, who suggested old schools could be used as affordable housing.

“All over Ontario, there are schools closing and the buildings are sitting there,” said Reil.

Graham reminded the group that Monday is the deadline to register as a delegate for the March convention.

Bursey said the event attracted 13 people. And while there were only six locals, including Bursey, by the time it wrapped up, the councillor said that, in a Tory-dominated riding where Liberals are comparatively small in number, even a handful of delegates could make a difference.

The Liberals’ historic 2018 drubbing under former premier Kathleen Wynne left the party with only seven seats, with two departures since then reducing the caucus to five.

The near-obliteration is a “rare moment” at which the party can opt for change and redefine itself, Graham believes.

“There is a sense that, after 15 years in power, that the party had stopped listening,” she said.

Graham hopes to redefine not only the party, but the way politics is done, with less of a focus on partisanship.

But she is aware of the great challenges now facing the Liberals, a lack of money being among the more prominent.

“Right now, we have nothing to lose; we have nowhere to go but up.”

Graham recognizes she is running against candidates who have more experience in government, but she is focusing on the coming convention.

“It’s been a really long time since a (Liberal) front-runner won a delegated convention,” said Graham.

“With a delegated convention, it really comes down to what happens that day.”